For those sleeping under a rock, we're in the middle of a pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic to be more specific. We're not even in the middle yet because we're not even through the first wave. We are currently living through the worst public health crisis in the last century. This has to be taken seriously.
I'm going to keep this short and sweet. I know I'm going to piss some people off but frankly, I don't care. I'm not here to make you feel good. We need to have a serious conversation about social, and personal responsibilities.
I've been on complete lockdown with my 3 autistic kids for 80 days now. My oldest is immunocompromised and we have to be extremely careful. We're also doing our part to protect you and everyone else by staying home. We wear masks when we leave the house and observe social distancing. We have zero contact with any other human beings.
I live in Ohio and while I didn't vote for him, I think Governor Mike DeWine has done a great job of mananging this crisis. He stood up to Trump and those in his own party. I feel that all the recent violence and armed protestors are having more influence on his decisions as of late. I'm not okay with that.
As I'm writing this, almost the entire country is reopened or reopening and frankly, based on what I'm seeing, this is terrifying. It would be scary if people were doing their part, being responsible and following the guidelines, but that's not happening.
I tried to take my kids to the park today. It should be safe as long as we don't come into contact with other people. We socially distance and wear our masks to protect everyone else. We drove to at least 3 different parks today and found them all to be jam packed with people, just like any other summer day, but this isn't just any other summer day.
In the course of our drive to find a place we could safely go to, we estimate that we saw several hundred people, at least. Between the parks, streets and everywhere else, we witnessed hundreds of people ignoring the CDC guidelines. Out of the hundreds of people we drove past, we saw only 2 people wearing masks. We saw large groups of people, smaller groups of people and even individuals, completely disregarding the health, safety and wellbeing of everyone else around them. There was even a graduation party around the corner from me and there were carloads of people crammed into a small front yard, all behaving as if COVID-19 wasn't a concern.
In my view, this is incredibly selfish, irresponsible and dangerous. I don't really care if that offends anyone because it's the truth. You're not just putting yourself at risk. The CDC says the roughly 35% of people infected are asymptomatic but very, very contagious.
We finally decided to try the Wellness Trail, about a 20 minute drive from our house. We frequent there during the summer and the kids are so fond of it. There were no cars at the trail head, so we thought it would be safe to try. We had our masks and paid close attention to our surroundings.
While we didn't come into anything even close to direct contact with anyone, because we actively avoided people, we did see dozens and dozens of people. They were walking different paths, having picnics in the shelters (which is still banned) or just collecting in the various parking lots. Not a single person wore a mask, besides us, at least that we saw and we were looking. We ultimately had to cut things short because there were just too many people. We got a short hike in and it was still nice but the risk became to great. It got to the point where there was almost no way to avoid people. We would have literally had to walk through groups of people and that's just not happening.
I just don't get it. People whine, cry, protest, sometimes violently and demand that lockdown end. What do they think is going to happen when all of this reckless, selfish behavior leads to even more infections? We are all going to have to go back on lockdown. COVID-19 will spread, people will get sick, businesses will have to close, people will lose their jobs and even more will die. As I'm writing this, we're at nearly 100,000 deaths in the US.
I get people wanting to go back to work because they need to provide for their families. Safely and responsibly doing so is fine in my book. The problem is that too many people are not doing their part. Too many people are putting their personal desire to go out, ahead of the health and safety or everyone around them. Even worse, some people still believe the whole thing is a hoax.
It's not that hard to wear a mask and socially distance. If you think it's hard to breath through a cloth mask, what do you think it's going to be like when your lungs fill with fluid and your only chance at survival is an induced coma and a ventilator, that may or may not even be available?
The only reason things aren't worse than what they currently are is because everything was shutdown. We've lost 100,000 people and for the most part, we were all locked down. Imagine how much worse it's going to be when everyone returns to their normal lives too soon, which many seem to have already done. These selfish actions are counterproductive to what you want and it's really not a difficult concept to grasp. Sure, you get out of the house for a little while now but ultimately, if we end up back on lockdown, it will be much worse this time around.
Nothing good is going to come from this. People are going to lose their jobs. People are going to get sick with COVID-19 and die. This virus is not like the flu or a cold. Anyone who tells you that is either stupid, ignorant, willfully spreading misinformation, or they just don't give a shit if you get sick and die. Pick your favorite reason but no matter how you look at it, this is extremely dangerous. 100,000 people in the US have already died. If we don't take this seriously, more people will die. Please don't wait until someone you care about dies, alone in a hospital, before you take this seriously. We have the power to get through this, but only if we work together, and do our part.
